The very heart of the West is unstable, broke and impotent. What does this mean for the world – and Canada?
There’s a psychological concept called the sad-clown paradox. That those who try to bring joy and make us feel better, who seem unflappable, carry deep sorrow inside.
In one famous joke, a depressed man is told to see the clown Pagliacci. The patient responds, “But doctor, you don’t understand. I am Pagliacci.” Ali G, the comedic character, says of the burger mascot Ronald McDonald: “Even though him [sic] may seem like he’s always smiling, there’s a sadness in the eyes.”
Such were European leaders at the Munich Security Conference this month, the world’s premier geopolitics summit, where the elders of the Old World spent a weekend telling everyone it was all going to be okay.
Mr. Trump has said Europe faces “civilizational erasure” because it has “gone woke” on migration and climate change and because of its alleged suppression of populist voices. He both misdiagnoses the problem and presents questionable evidence.
The article is the old order grasping for relevance and finding all it can do is complain about Trump.
No one reads a Lionel Shriver novel expecting a cheerful ending, and her latest, A Better Life, will not disillusion readers in this respect. An expert in the depiction and skewering of middle-class vanity, Shriver is merciless in examining dainty liberal principles, then shredding them and the people who 
